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Chris Passey’s debut album Self Taught, Still Learning has just been released in aid of the MS Society and Cancer Research. It contains 11 original songs, which are performed by well-known performers.

The first number, Comedy Introduction is by Miranda Sings (aka Colleen Ballinger), who introduces the album, the concept of charity work (or rather her idea of it) and her song. As the title suggests, it’s very funny and just typical Miranda.

Blue Sky Thinking is the first song, sung by Lauren Samuels. It’s very catchy with a beautiful melody and lyrics. Lauren sounds great.

In My Arms: This is sung by Liam Tamne. It is one of the highlights of the album for me, especially because of the lyrics.

Take Me With You: This is a duet sung by Siobhan Dillon and Simon Lipkin. Their voices sound incredible together and it’s a beautiful, yet sad song.

Lifeline: Caroline Keiff sings this stunning song. It’s got a very sad undertone, but it’s also full of hope. I really like it.

You Were Mine: This is a more upbeat, yet still melancholy, song sung by Chloe Hart, Trevor Jary, Zoe Rainey and Wayne A. Robinson.

How Would They Feel? This song is sung by Chris Passey himself and is my favourite song of the album. It’s a very, very moving song and Chris’s voice sounds magnificent. Just perfect.

Three Tiny Words: I heard this song at the A Night For Jennifer Gala and loved it. Here it is sung by Allyson Ava-Brown, who does a great job with it. It’s a very powerful ballad.

If They Only Knew: I love Kieran Brown’s voice on this. It’s another stunning ballad, beautiful in every way.

Sin That I Am: This is sung by Mark Evans and Ross Hunter. It’s a very catchy, quite upbeat song and I think it suits both their voices perfectly.

Room For Me: Another highlight for me, sung by the talented Richard Meek. A wonderful ballad.

Worthy: As Miranda, Colleen Ballinger does her best to convince us that she can’t sing at all, but here she shows just how beautiful her voice is. Another ballad with powerful lyrics.

Worthy (live): The Miranda Version of the song. It’s as hysterical as you’d expect it to be.

What I noticed most when listening to this album is the beauty and expressiveness of the lyrics. Together with the rich and catchy tunes, this makes Self Taught, Still Learning a unique listening experience. For me, it exceeded any expectations I had beforehand and shows yet again just how many talented British composers are out there who just wait for their chance.

After the success of his previous concerts in London, Scott Alan returned for this one-night only concert. Due to popular demand a second concert was added for the evening. Scott was joined by Natalie Weiss, Cassie McIvor, Ashleigh Gray, Chloe Hart, Jodie Jacobs, Sarah Earnshaw and Daniel Boys. There were also two unexpected special guests…

The concert started with Natalie Weiss singing “I Am a Star”. She’s got an amazing voice, what a great start to the evening.

Next was Ashleigh Gray with “West”. It’s one of my favourite songs by Scott Alan and Ashleigh is such a talented performer. Stunning!

Chloe Hart sang an amazing rendition of “Easy”

This was followed by another amazing performance: Cassie McIvor singing “I’m Not Ready Yet to Grieve”.

Jodie Jacobs came on stage to sing “Surrender”. This song really showed off her voice, loved it.

Sarah Earnshaw’s “Again” was lovely!

“Magic” was sung by Ashleigh Gray. Just perfect.

Natalie Weiss sang a great acoustic version of “Distance You Have Come”.

Then Scott Alan came on stage and sang “It’s Good to See You Again”. It always feel special to me somehow when I see composers perform their own material.

Sarah Earnshaw came back to sing “Watch Me Soar”. Another lovely song and her voice really did soar.

Then Natalie Weiss was joined by the Divo of the evening, Daniel Boys, to sing “Nothing More” Their voices sounded lovely together and it’s such a beautiful song too.

Daniel stayed on to sing “Kiss the Air”. A truly amazing performance! He’s got one of the best voices I’ve heard.

“Say Goodbye” was sung by Cassie McIvor again. What a voice!

For the next song, Scott invited 5 aspiring performers to the stage (randomly picked from the audience), who each sang a couple of lines from “Never Neverland” before one of them was chosen to sing the whole song. The winner, and deservedly so, was Ziggie Sky Ward. No rehearsals, nothing, but she still nailed it. They couldn’t have chosen anyone better.

Next up were some songs from Scott’s new musical “Home”. The first was “My Life” sung by Scott himself. I liked it, especially the lyrics.

Jodie Jacobs and Natalie Weiss then sang “Home”. It’s such an uplifting song.

“And There It Is” was sung by Natalie Weiss again, followed by Chloe Hart’s “I Wish”. Beautiful songs and performances!

Ashleigh Gray then performed a new song from “Home”, “Getting High”. It was quite cheeky, but also very sad in parts.

The next song was another surprise. Stuart Matthew Price was in the audience and was asked by Scott to perform “Free” with Ashleigh Gray. I love the duet version of it and hearing it sung by such talented performers was wonderful.

The last song was sung by Scott again. He asked the audience what they wanted to hear and “Now” turned out to be the most popular. It was a great ending to the concert.

In-between songs there was the usual Scott Alan banter, including lots of swearing. Sometimes it just feels a bit too much for me (not the swearing, just in general), but it’s all part of the fun I guess. It definitely was a hugely enjoyable evening with stunning performances.

A Night For Jennifer was a special gala concert in support of the Jennifer Charity. The Jennifer Charity was set up by James and Graham Edgington and supports widowed fathers and their children. You can find more about the charity here.

This one-off concert was produced by Chris Macklin and had a very impressive line-up, including some of the best performers in the West End as well as some up-and-coming talent.

I enjoyed the evening very much, though there were some performances I didn’t really like. But considering the diversity of them I think that was only natural.

Given the amount of talent involved in the concert I find it hard to single some of them out, but here we go.

Joseph Connor’s ‘You and Me (But Mostly Me)’ from Book of Mormon was great. I’m a huge fan of the musical and loved seeing a song from it performed live (and so well!). Unfortunately I didn’t catch the name of the second performer.

Hearing Rosalind James sing ‘Daddy’s Song’ (from Ragtime) again was wonderful. I loved it when it was on at the Landor. She has a unique voice.

The three songs from Chris Passey’s upcoming album. Chloe Hart’s ‘Worthy’ was incredible, as was ‘Self Taught, Still Learning’, which was sung by Nadine Cox and the quartet (‘You Were Mine’) sung by Gina Beck, Jeremy Legat, Chloe Hart and Chris Passey himself. His songs are very melodic with beautiful lyrics. His album Self Taught, Still Learning is released on the 15th November and judging by those three songs it’s going to be a treat!

Steven Webb’s ‘How Do You Know ‘Til You Try Me’ from Betwixt. I’ve seen him in a couple of things in the past 12 months, but his stage presence never fails to amaze me. Wonderful performance.

Danny Lane

Being Alive was sung by Danny Lane. I thought his performance was breath taking. His voice just blew me away and he nailed that song (which is one of my favourite MT songs). Definitely one to watch out for!

I really liked the Jennifer Choir, but for me there were two performers who stood out and completely stole the Finale (Never Forget): Ziggie Sky Ward and Ben Vivian-Jones. Both have incredibly strong voices. Another two to watch out for in the future!

Special mention goes to James and Graham Edgington, without whom this concert would never have happened.

It was a very enjoyable evening, thanks to the hard work by everyone involved, so a big Thank You to them and I hope they managed to raise a lot of money for the Jennifer Charity!